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All the news you need to know from the final day of E3 2015
From Day Minus-1 to now, it's been one of the most exciting E3s in recent memory. No new consoles, but lots of actually exciting sequels, ideas, games and cos-players. As we rub lotion into our lanyard rashes, we present our picks from the last day of madness. We'll be delivering our final doses of gaming news today from LA, but we'll all be talking about what was announced this week for at least the next year. Check out everything that game from our LA stint right here. Thanks for following along -- now hit it!
Media Molecule's 'Dreams' is for YouTubers and Twitch streamers
When Alex Evans, co-founder of Sony PlayStation first-party studio Media Molecule, announced Dreams onstage at E3 this week, there was a lot of confusion in the audience and on social media. And that's okay, according to Evans. "What we wanted to do was get it out there and get people talking about it. And your staff are right to be scratching their heads. ... If it's on your radar, fantastic. Because it is hard to take it in. The main confusion I've seen reading on the net does seem to be that people are like, 'Is it a movie maker? Is it a game maker? What is it?' The communities will probably define that. But it's absolutely a game. We are making games with it. What you will choose to make with it, what the community will choose to make with it -- that's the cool thing. We don't know."
Sony invites PS4 gamers to invade each other's 'Dreams'
Leave it to Media Molecule, the Sony first-party studio responsible for the crafty Tearaway and level-creation bonanza that is LittleBigPlanet, to introduce something a little different at E3. Dreams, as the new title is called, takes a unique approach to gameplay, letting PlayStation 4 users create, explore and "remix" each other's dreams. Alex Evans, studio co-founder, explained that by using the DualShock 4's motion controls, players can easily "piece together a whole environment in moments." There's also the ability to animate characters of your own creation using performance capture.
The Think Tank: One MMO wish for 2015
Every year when we roll out our prediction articles with anything negative (because of course something negative is likely to happen in this industry over the span of a year), a commenter invariably accuses us of wishing for the negative thing to occur. It just ain't so. Predictions aren't wishes. In many cases, we're hoping to be wrong about our suspicions and hunches and dread. We're crossing our fingers that the wind turns and statistical likelihoods are flukily wrong. Can't bet the ranch on hopes and dreams. But wishes can be fun too. That's what we're doing in this first Think Tank of the new year. This, my friends, is what wishes look like.
TOSY and Justin Bieber announce mRobo: we go hands-on, dance-off (video)
Beethoven's Fifth. Michelangelo's Pietà. Plato's Republic. Cornerstones of human civilization, to be sure, but they all pale in comparison to what we saw today at CES: TOSY's new mRobo robot, inspired by none other than the Cultural Colossus of our time, Justin Bieber. The Vietnamese manufacturer and pubescent Prince have just taken the wraps off their latest collaboration: a petite, portable speaker-robot that dances -- nay, transcends -- just like his only slightly larger progenitor counterpart. When in speaker mode, the mRobo weighs in at just 3.3 pounds, stands a little under eight inches tall, and boasts 2GB of internal memory. Its integrated speaker pumps out the jams at bass levels of 40Hz, but the real magic happens once the music starts playing, automatically prompting the system to transform into an 18-inch tall robot and start dancing. Unfortunately, the bot is still in prototype mode, but it's expected to retail for about $200 when it launches during the fall of 2012.Today, though, we were lucky enough to get a sneak peak of the mRobo, courtesy of a mic'd-up Messiah with sweepy bangs and a leather jacket. Upon taking the stage to roars of applause and Jelly Bean sunshowers, Bieber went on to do a brief demo of the bot, displaying its ability to sync its dance moves to whatever tunes blare out of its abdomen speaker -- in this case, Billie Jean. The mRobo looked admittedly clumsy at times, and was especially awkward when onstage with the teen phenom, but, as TOSY repeatedly reminded us, it's still in prototype phase. (Bieber, for his part, did a good job of looking completely awestruck throughout much of the experience.) Before descending from his bubblegum pulpit, Bieber reminded his acolytes to "follow your dreams." Ours, at least, have just been realized. Follow yours past the break, straight to our hands-on video.Mat Smith contracted Bieber Fever from this report.
The Road to Mordor: Dungeon-running with Turbine
As we talked about last month, Turbine's toting around a double-barreled shotgun full of content that it's preparing to unload. While the biggest blast will undoubtedly be Lord of the Rings Online's third expansion, Rise of Isengard, the team is working hard to provide us with plenty to do between now and then. Part of that effort is directed at Update 3, which is currently scheduled to go live on May 23rd in North America and after June 1st for Europe when the LotRO Global Service takes effect and all of the accounts are moved under Turbine's purview. I eagerly sat down with Turbine's Aaron Campbell and Joe Barry for a play-through of Update 3's two new three-player instances, Halls of Night and Inn of the Forsaken. Both of these scalable instances will be available to a wide swath of players, and they feature mechanics and sights never before seen in the game. Also, they're wicked cool. So join me today as I take you on a brief tour of horrors and adventures beyond imagination. Has everyone used the restroom before we go? Are you sure? It's a long article; I don't want you leaving in the middle of it. OK, let's ride!
Visualized: jousting on a Segway
Remember the olden days? When honor and valor were the only things that mattered and vast metallic armor suits were less of a laughing matter and more of a practical necessity? Neither do we, but that doesn't stop us from enjoying a good video gaming romp through such settings when we have the time for it. We don't know that we'd necessarily care to reenact medieval battle scenes physically, but that's exactly what a witty new marketing campaign for Washington's Lottery has done. It asks simply "what have you and your friends always wanted to do" and then answers its own query with the nutty answer of Segway jousting. See the resulting video, which was partially shot in Phantom slow-mo, after the break.
Christopher Nolan confirms Inception video game in development
Inception director Christopher Nolan has been considering putting together a video game based on his mind-bending film for a while, but it looks like those plans have gone one level deeper: He now tells Entertainment Weekly that the project is a go. Nolan says he's working with a full team on the game as "a longer-term proposition" and that he's excited to "explore" the medium of gaming by creating a new story set in the world of the movie. EW suggests an MMO, but we have a better idea (that we wouldn't mind planting in the back of Nolan's brain, if someone out there has the means to do it, wink wink): a spinning top simulator. Call us, Nolan -- we've got Dark Knight ideas, too!
Found Footage: Homemade stratospheric capsule uses iPhone GPS
In the midst of all the excitement and hype surrounding today's announcements, we thought we'd share this popular and heart-warming tale of a father and son believing in their dreams and reaching for them. Seven-year-old Max Geissbuhler and his dad, Luke Geissbuhler, dreamed of visiting space. After eight months of determination and preparation, and with the help of a weather balloon, a HD video camera, and an iPhone, they got pretty close. Housing the equipment in a specially designed, insulated case (filled with some hand-warmers) and hoping to capture "the blackness beyond our earth," the pair launched their explorer in August of this year. The video above is the story of that journey. Climbing almost 19 miles, their craft flew into the stratosphere, capturing some rather impressive video footage along the way. International convention puts space at 100km. Once the weather balloon burst (due to lack of atmospheric pressure), the capsule began its decent back to the Earth -- aided by a deployed parachute. But how did they locate the unit once it had landed back on earth? Well, that's where the iPhone came into play. They used a GPS tracking app on a borrowed iPhone (that's how you know who your real friends are, by the way) to locate the downed capsule and recover it. From all of us at TUAW, we say well done to you, Max and Luke Geissbuhler. The family is now gauging interest in a 'how-to' book for other parental explorers.
Massively tours EverQuest's House of Thule expansion
The House of Thule. Not to be confused with the Summer Cottage of Thule, or the Awkwardly-Small-Yet-Expensive Inner City Apartment of Thule. Thule's house is a scary place, and it's a place that all denizens of Norrath shall soon be intimately familiar with. Sony Online Entertainment recently gave us a deep tour of its 17th EverQuest expansion, and it's the first time I've set foot in pre-EQII Norrath in years. Luckily I can report that Sony isn't letting EverQuest lie on its laurels. While this next expansion may not sound like much (it's just a house... or is it?), it's packed with enough content to send me through a two-and-a-half hour long developer tour. Plus, I should mention that I only got to see about half of the new zones, and none of the new raids. But why should we stand outside of this lovely home when there's so much madness hidden within? Come, journey with me, and lose all sense of what is reality.
No Comment: Inception explained for Mac users
Confused by the summer's biggest blockbuster and its multiple dream levels? Wishing Christopher Nolan had used some sort of OS X-related metaphor instead? Jonah Ray's got just the graphic for you -- he created a graphic that shows just who's around on each level of the vast dreamscape in Inception, courtesy of the Finder's clean and simple interface. (It probably goes without saying, but you shouldn't follow that link unless you've seen the movie already. -Ed) Of course, I can't help think that maybe it would be a little more appropriate if all of the sub-level pictures were just aliases of the original pictures, since deleting them won't delete the originals. And shouldn't Eames look a little different when he's impersonating Browning in Yusuf's dream? Wait -- our heads just started hurting again. Instead, we'll just post this picture here with no extra comment. [via TDW]
Google's Amit Singhal tells us about the dreams search engines are made of
Do Googlers dream of electric algorithms? For a little insight into what makes the search engine that became a verb tick, we recently attended a talk by Amit Singhal, one of its chief engineers. Amit is part of the team in charge of tweaking and improving Google's ranking algorithms and has 20 years of experience when it comes to sorting through data, with that time split into even decades spent within the academic sphere and over in Mountain View. What he had to tell us mostly revolved around his aspirations from when he started out back in 1990, but it's the way that Google has acted to meet each of those goals that's the fun and interesting stuff (or as we like to call it around here, the meat). So do put on your reading monocle and join us past the break.%Gallery-97608%
Gamers more likely to experience sweet, lucid dreams
New research coming out of Grant MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada has left us feeling a little... creepy. It turns out that gamers and those who have lucid dreams -- in which the person is aware of the fact that they're dreaming and can sometimes control the dreams -- have a few things in common. Namely, both are usually less prone to motion sickness and possess better spatial skills, as well as demonstrating higher levels of concentration. This led Jayne Gackenbach -- whose previous work had been in the field of lucid dreaming -- to surmise that incessant gamers might just be more likely to also be lucid dreamers. And guess what? Her research corroborated that -- and a second study revealed even more interesting tidbits -- such as the fact that gamers are also more likely to switch from first person to third person "out of body" views in dreams, as well. So, where does all of this lead us? Gackenbach sees the data and findings as applicable in the treatment of persistent nightmares, which can often be "ended" if the dreamer is able to take control of the situation, and ultimately could help treat certain stress-related disorders like PTSD. We'll have to see what the future holds, but we certainly aren't surprised to hear that heavy gamers can be cool even as they sleep.
BioWare would 'love' to revisit Jade Empire (so would we)
Speaking to Stragety Informer, BioWare's Mike Laidlaw had some simultaneously pleasing and disappointing news for Jade Empire fans. When asked directly when we would see a sequel to the Asian fantasy RPG, Laidlaw opted for the always handy -- and always frustrating -- PR Jedi mind trick, stating that BioWare hasn't made any announcements regarding Jade Empire 2. On a brighter note, he added that the game is a "staff favorite," saying, "We'd love to revisit it at some point." He then quickly switched gears back to disappointment, noting that the company is currently focused on Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. Dear team BioWare, you are most assuredly not the only ones that would love to revisit Jade Empire. Grab a sticky note and write that down, tuck it under your pillow and think about it. Think hard. Thanks.
Capcom doesn't completely dismiss Darkstalkers Remix possibility
We're going to be honest with you here, the real reason this post exists is because we really hope Capcom is considering an HD remix of of the Darkstalkers series (hell, even an SD re-release would be fine). That said, the company didn't actually do anything to suggest that one is in the cards. What did happen was this: Someone over at the Capcom Unity forums posted a thread asking about the likelihood of a Darkstalkers remix.It looks like Capcom actually took notice, with business and strategy VP Christian Svensson joining the conversation and asking, "Is this something people would want to see?" After a rousing chorus "Hell yes," Svennson added, "Thanks for the feedback guys. Appreciate it."Frankly, we don't find it likely that Capcom would go to the trouble of actually remaking a Darkstalkers game. After all, it took serious effort to produce Street Fighter II HD Remix, and Darkstalkers has considerably more frames of animation that would have to be redrawn. However, Capcom has proven that it's not averse to listening to fans and re-releasing ports of older games, as evidenced by Marvel vs Capcom 2.So, how about it, Capcom, can we have a Darkstalkers re-release? An entirely new entry in the series would also be acceptable.[Thanks, Bruce! Image: UDON]
Our iTablet Dreams: What TUAW is wishing for
Last week the topic of the iTablet ranged into dream territory as we TUAWians discussed this speculative post over at Technologizer. Although some team members expressed reservations about the iTablet and its possible limitations, others of us let our hopes range free. With apologies to Robert Browning, at least I think it is Robert Browning, if our dreams do not exceed Apple's grasp, then what is the imagination for? So keeping that expansive philosophy in mind, here are the TUAW wishlists for the possibly probably upcoming tablet. Erica Sadun: While I'm still hoping for a dockable, one that works as a Snow Leopard desktop when docked and runs iPhone OS on the go, I'm not holding my breath either. Today's MacBook storage and battery options prove that with a dockable tablet, I could bring my entire world with me and use that world for reasonable periods of time -- but it would take a significant engineering effort to merge iPhone's ubiquitous touch screen technology with standard Mac OS X interaction models. So, will the tablet really run Snow Leopard? Er, probably not. But could you imagine a MacBook shell, where you could slide the tablet into a frame where the screen normally sits? That would be freaking awesome. Even as an iPhone-OS-only solution, an iTablet would provide wealth of on-the go applications through App Store. Assuming no great leaps forward beyond what we're already seeing in the iPhone OS 3.x SDK, an iTablet would be ready to provide existing iPhone capabilities with a beautiful big screen to work with. If I had to pick two features that I'd want to see added, though, they would be wireless support for external keyboards and ubiquitous TV-out. Although the on-screen keyboard is fine for tip-tapping data into fields, there will be times that a tablet user might want to unfold a portable Bluetooth keyboard and use that for data entry. TV-out support is currently limited to movie playback. Extending that to general application output would help position an iTablet better into the business presentation world. It would also be nice if an Apple Remote of some kind could be used with an iTablet. Even without these features, an iTablet limited to the current iPhone OS will be a major technology leap forward just due to the increased screen real estate. I can't wait to start playing with big-screen iPhone applications!
Japanese researchers create images from thoughts using thoughts about images
A team of Japanese scientists at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, led by researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani, have successfully processed and displayed reconstructed images directly from the ever-hackable human brain. In the experiments, the team first showed participants 400 different still images in order to suss out their visual thought patterns. They then showed them the letters that make up the word "neuron," and successfully reconstructed them via brain activity onto a screen. The full results of the tests are going to be published later this month in Neuron, but Dr. F. Krueger at ATR says that they think the tech could someday be used to hack into people's dreams. [Via Register Hardware]Read - Dreams may no longer be secret with Japan computer screenRead - Your dreams, images can be!
MTV discovers how developers dream
Here's something we never knew we wanted to know about: What kind of dreams game developers are having. MTV has answered the unasked with a new post, and the tales of cross-dressing as Mirror's Edge's' Faith and pet Balverines are so good we're tempted to start leading every interview off with a discussion about the subconcious.MTV has also given us a great idea for a new, multi-platform IP from Joystiq Publishing: Imagine Recurring Dreamz. So look for All Your Teeth Are Falling Out this fall, Going To Places In Your Underwear next spring and Doing It With Your Third-Grade Choir Teacher While TV's Mr. Belvedere Looks On In Disgust in Q4 of 2009.
Generation raised with black and white TV dreams in monochrome
This one's pretty wild -- recent research in the UK finds that people who grew up in the era of black and white media dream in monochrome about a quarter of the time, while those of us raised with color TV almost always dream in full-on Technicolor. The research suggests that exposure to media between the ages of three and 10 is when the switch is set, since that's when the ability to dream kicks in -- which means we're suddenly terrified our kids are going to wind up dreaming in heavily-compressed SD stretched to the wrong aspect ratio, buffering endlessly before failing out due to a missing plugin. Here's to the future.[Via Switched]
Breakfast Topic: WoW dreams
Have you ever had those gaming dreams? Like, say, after playing Tetris for four hours straight, your dreams become inundated with big, floaty boxes? We've actually asked this before, but since it's a Breakfast Topic, you just might have some dream fresh in your noggin. My wife's actually had a couple of bizarre World of Warcraft dreams, such as that time where she dreamed she was raiding in RL, with giant Playstation-like controllers attached to her arms and where she (along with friends) ran up and down our main street fighting some Level ?? house-boss. Doesn't make any sense? Of course not! It's a dream about WoW! I've had more than my fair share of Salvador Dali-esque Battlegrounds-related dreams, specially after grinding endless hours. So, good morning! How was your dream? More to the point, how was your World of Warcraft dream?
